Probing the nature of grammaticalisation on the basis of an in-depth study of the process of auxiliation, this book brings together the explanatory potential of recent grammaticalisation theory and insights from the latest psychological studies.
Challenging the classic narrative that sovereign states make the law that constrains them, this book argues that treaties and other sources of international law form only the starting point of legal authority. Interpretation can shift the meaning of texts and, in its own way, ma…
This monograph offers the first in-depth lexical and semantic analysis of motion verbs in their development from Latin to nine Romance languages -- Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, Occitan, Sardinian, and Raeto-Romance -- demonstrating that the patterns o…
"Religious icons have been a contested terrain across the world. Their implications and understanding travel further than the artistic or the aesthetic and inform contemporary preoccupations. This book traces the lives of religious sculptures beyond the moment of their creation.…
The volume focuses on semantic shifts and motivation patterns in the lexicon. Its key feature is its lexico-typological orientation, i.e. a heavy emphasis on systematic cross-linguistic comparison. The book presents current theoretical and methodological trends in the study of s…
Main description: Meanings of words are constantly changing, and the forces driving these changes are varied and diverse. The collection focuses on meaning change as a topic of interdisciplinary research. Distinguished scholars in diachronic semantics, general linguistics, class…
